


The Wrong Way

by TotemundTabu



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotemundTabu/pseuds/TotemundTabu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is in love with Francis, his only friend and his brother's ex since years. When he understands he will never be loved back, Arthur decides to do something potentially dangerous for his heart and clearly stupid. - Human AU, NC17, contains also pixiv!Scotland (here named Williams), punkish!England, Arthur's POV , FrUK, Auld Alliance in the past and other minor ships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_**The wrong way** _

_When you say it's gonna happen "now"_  
well, when exactly do you mean?  
See, I've already waited too long  
and all my hope is gone.

_You shut your mouth! How can you say_   
_I go about things the wrong way?_   
_I am human and I need to be loved,_   
_just like everybody else does._

_-_ _How soon is now?_ _, The Smiths_

_1._

I don't even remember the first time I started to see you differently.

I would like – it'd appear more poetic – to have a nice story about a word you said absent-mindedly or about how your hair was shining in the spring sun rays. But it would be a lie, and I was never really fond of them.

The truth is I can't recall how was when I didn't love you.

I have vague memories of a foggy heart and a misty mood, of a time when my mind was more lucid and my tongue sharper, but I was sadder.

Loving you, somehow, makes me happy.

The strange thing it's the kind of happy that leaves your heart ramshackle and torn.

But I suppose it's good enough.

_The best of us can find happiness in misery_ , after all.

"Another one.", I say to the barman, raising my empty glass.

You smile, knowingly, "Ohi, _Arthur_. - my name sounds so ridiculous smooth between your lips, I hate it – Aren't you drinking a little too much?"

"You are already wasted.", Williams commented, wrinkling his nose.

"I hate both of you... so much, so much."

The barman gives me another gin and I feel my head heavier even just seeing it. I drink it quickly, it it's delicious and sweet.

Like everything I can't have.

William shakes his head, irritated and goes to the bathroom, without saying anything. Francis's eyes follow him without a word.

He ruffles his hair, combing them with his long fingers.

"He's just worried about you, you know."

"Who fucking cares.", I hiss, almost spitting, then I play with the piercing on my tongue, sucking it nervously.

Francis seems hurt. And I feel guilty.

He and his stupid big eyes, so sincere so suddenly, when they are usually flirty and mellow.

I hate that vulnerable appearance he shows only sometimes, only with me, only to make me feel a dipshit.

I'd like to just scream you that I love you, but that look it's exactly the reason I can't.

I can't have your love, but I don't want that brotherly and teasing attitude of yours to break into Pity. I don't want to lose even the little I have. I couldn't afford it.

I bite my bottom lip.

"Again. - Francis rolls his eyes to the ceiling and touches my chin – C'mon, let it free."

His fingertip is scorching. I feel my skin hot and I stay paralyzed for I think a whole minute.

I slowly stop biting the lip and Francis' finger comes a little up, brushing lightly against it.

Just barely.

But I feel scared, like a little rabbit, and I can't bring myself to look at him.

I'd die to know what expression he has right now, what he's thinking at, but I am pretty sure, if I'd look at you, I wouldn't die, I would just blush and suddenly be without barriers in my look. I am afraid you'd understand.

When Francis' thumb touches my upper lip, I can't avoid breathing in.

He backs off quickly, like he burned himself too.

"You should drop it. - his voice sounds hoarse – It's a bad habit."

He starts again to sip his wine, _rouge_ , _la couleur de l'amour_ , licking it form his full, dark pink lips.

I try to return to breathing normally, to regularize my heartbeat, but it's useless. I feel like my heart throbs directly into my throat, or my mind. I can't almost hear anything.

"Do you have somebody right now?", I ask, point blank.

"Big-brother is unlucky. - he sighs, falsely dramatically – Lean times."

"You are getting old."

"Turd."

Oh, what can I do, Francis? It's out of the question showing you how I feel, it'd be inappropriate and self-harming.

Offending you but never too much is my only way to protect myself.

William returns and I feel like eclipsing again. He smirks, he puts an hand on Francis' shoulder.

I want that shoulder to be mine.

I want him all to myself.

But how could I?

* * *

If I could make a make top ten chart of pains in the ass, my siblings would win the first positions, followed by bad adaptations of good novels and, obviously, Francis Bonnefoy.

Because Francis is a pain the ass. He is the Supreme Pain in the Ass.

The King.

The Jedi.

His Fucking Imperious Condescension of the hemospectrum of Assholes.

But I love him.

And I'm ashamed of admit how badly.

The first time I met Francis, I was eight, he came home with my brother from school and, after a blink and some comment about me being cute, he was pulled and tugged from William into his bedroom to play some horrible fighting video game.

They changed type of games pretty soon, though.

Except some quick meeting in the kitchen, some rushed hello from the sofa, I had to wait to be fifteen to start to know him. Not Francis' fault to be honest, William was just jealous and possessive like a fucking new Othello.

I was often reading big novels and he came close to me, asked me what I was reading, sometimes commenting with his snobby attitude, sometimes actually suggesting me some books. Mostly French novels with too many adjectives, but, yeah, he tried.

I found out his singing voice was beautiful, but it was useless to deny the notes I was more struck by where the ones he reached in William's bed. The sounds were badly-muffled by the walls, I find hard not to believe my brother did it on purpose.

Shortly, though, Francis and I became bickering friends- from what we always called in code the 'pool accident' about which, anyway, we avoided to talk, unless strictly needed – and he insisted for William to include me too in the nights out.

I lost my virginity with one of his stupid friends, Antonio, squirming, holding him to smell his neck and shoulders just hoping to catch a trace of Francis' scent. I bit my lips that night not to suppress moans but to avoid calling for him.

And it always ended up like this, even with girls.

I gave up pretty quickly the idea of stopping loving him, even if I was constantly pissed off by something he had... I guess it was the way he never loved me exclusively and deeply enough.

The way he was completely not in my control.

But wanting him, after so many years, got out of hand. It's pitiful and ridiculous at most.

With time, Francis and William broke up, remaining like a sort of strange mix between buddies and friends with benefits when they were both single, but this never give me enough courage nor an enough propitious circumstance to ask him he and I could be... what, anyway? Francis never loved me and probably never will.

I am condemned to stay in company with this uneven feeling.

With time, when I started to play the guitar, we even started to sing together, but somehow this only made things harder for me to bear. It was too strange.

Having that subtle, undeniable, warm tension between us all people who plays songs together have, being on the bed with him moving his lips softly, enraptured by the lyrics, his hair waving sweetly, knowing perfectly those songs that reminded me of him to him were just for somebody else... it was too much. I still play with him, sometimes, when misery is so low I can pretend or so strong I just want to torture me a little.

I light up a cigarette and I drown in the smoke.

I'd like to be yours, Francis.

I'd like you to be mine.

But, well, here we go again, I suppose people always search for miracles, right?

* * *

"Alfred is a nice guy, isn't he?", Francis asks me, munching.

I reply with a grunt.

He rolls near me on the bed and smiles widely, almost a smirk, "Oh, you don't like him? C'mon."

"No. - I reply, dryly – He is more like a brother."

He laughs naughtily, "I wouldn't write songs about a brother."

"What?"

"Blue eyes. - he blinks – Isn't it about him?"

I shiver. Cold ice in my spine.

"Ah, well... it's just a song."

About you.

Idiot.

Francis pouts, "I thought you liked him a little... my radar is broken, then?"

"If it's in the brain, it's highly possible."

"You are funny like a cactus in the asshole."

"For someone who buys studded condoms, it's not a good simile.", I try to hide the little note of warmth that my voice would have liked to take.

Why wasn't I one of those flirty girls or boys, always surrounding him, able to just rub me against him, offering me, whispering my name and making anyone die with desire?

Why was I as sexy as a hamster?

Why couldn't I just do the few steps to him, sit on his lap and make out? He wouldn't refuse me. I know he wouldn't. Francis never refuses anyone. He wouldn't... would he?

Or would he look me in shock, confused and dismayed by my revelation?

Francis chuckles softly, "I'm a little disappointed, though, I would have swear you to like him."

He takes out from the messenger bag and hands me a bottle of Bombay Sapphire. It's my favourite and he always remembers.

I take out some blackberry liqueur from under my bed, because it's his favourite and I want him to know I always remember too. But I guess he'll never notice.

Getting tipsy doesn't require too much, especially when Francis and I are alone, because we don't like to limit ourselves. William is way more controlled.

I usually am a bit of a control freak, but alcohol is my excuse to stop.

Nobody expect me to fit perfectly my role then.

Francis plays with my eyebrow piercing and then touches my ears, he doesn't know it drives me crazy. I get stiff, trying to suppress my thoughts, but they get louder.

I'd eat him up.

If I could just...

I am not really drunk, but my thighs start to feel warmer and my stomach is all twisted like a knot of hidden longing.

I am not really drunk, but my shoulders feel heavy and throat feels dry. Francis' laugh sounds so harmonious, I can't say why it hurts me.

Too much beauty.

Always.

Since years.

Since the first day.

Too much beauty.

And then I kiss him.

_Finally_. After years, I breathe his scent directly, so close it mixes with mine. And his lips are so soft, it feels like a vertigo. They are full, sweet like mulberries, intense, silky.

My bottom lip shivers a little at contact with his.

His open mouth I wanted so much is right there and I seal it

It's mine, mine, mine alone, just for a second.

I press him a little more against the wall, I come closer, and there I feel him getting rigid, all of sudden, like realizing a sense of wrong. Why it feels wrong to you, Francis, when this is my heaven?

I feel his hand reaching my chest, but in a weak, cold way, like he tries to make me understand to stop.

But I don't want. I kiss him harder, deeper, I sit on him and I feel him liking it. He replies to my kiss, unwillingly yet full of desire. I feel it too. His tongue burns just like mine.

He tries to say something, but his voice fails because I don't want to let him go.

Finally, I can caress that hair with my fingers, running them through it without any shame, without any fear. All the love I felt more years is pulsing into my veins and my heart is almost exploding.

My chest hurts.

They always say it does, but I thought about a pussy little girl type of pain, like a little sting, instead it's a fucking heavy pain. It's like a wound right in my lungs.

It's like having the ribs broken: an invisible yet merciless pain.

But, while I'm in that hurtful heaven, I realize I can't say him the truth. I can't let him know I love him, that I want him that way.

Because he doesn't.

And I can't let he know I'm brokenhearted.

I will be anyway, that's granted, but I can still save my dignity.

I want him but I can't let him know how.

As we separate, he pants, with a low voice, "...Art?"

He rarely calls me Art. He always calls me _Arthur,_ with the thick French accent. Art is like my mother used to call me and it sounds intimate and sweet and I feel a strange contraction in my stomach again.

"You look better when I'm drunk.", I whisper, acting as natural as possible.

I can't say if he is relieved or disappointed, he just pushes back his hair.

"Your brother will kill me if he finds out."

I feel the grin dying on my face, "It's not like you are getting laid with him now, so..."

"You are his brother. - his voice goes dry – It's disturbing, it's one of those things you never must do fucking with two siblings."

_Disturbing_.

Oh, whoa.

In all those years I never once thought about it in those terms, because you were so overwhelming and wonderful I didn't care if you were William's lover or the queen's one. I never cared and I won't start now.

"Just once in a while, he doesn't have to know."

He looks down, avoiding my eyes.

He never refuses anyone.

Why a part of me is sad, though? Is it because it's bitter to be accepted just because of it?

"It's just sex.", I lie again, to push him to an answer.

His blue eyes return on me.

His blue eyes are the only eyes I ever looked at.

Slowly, he puts an hand on my waist, taking me closer to him. I open my mouth and I let him catch me. I feel my knees melting, while his tongue enters. Shuddering, I hold more onto him.

It's just sex, we repeat to ourselves in our minds, and I know, he is trying to convince himself and I'm reminding myself which my role is.

His hands slips on my jeans, caresses my butt, and I drop a moan directly in his mouth.

It's the wrong way, I know, but who I am to tell something like this to myself?

He kisses my neck fiercely, ravenously. When he bites me, it's so hot I almost swoon. His teeth hurts, but I feel my own flesh pulsating, I want to melt and become one with him.

I call his name; and I'm scared, frankly scared to death.

I am scared that my voice may betray all my feelings.

I feel close to break, close to shatter and my dust will show him all my truth I can't afford to know.

Francis starts to unzip my jeans and I feel like everywhere he touches my body catches fire, a fire made of pleasure, surprise and undisclosed desires being taken off the lid.

I shiver softly under his fingers.

His hair on my skin feels unreal.

* * *

Alfred is a freshman, I am still not sure if he came closer to me because he found me cool or in order to save me from satanism, but apparently in his hometown in deep fried American South, there was nobody like me. I wouldn't define it a friend, because talking about him with some stuff feels odd and weird, he is more like one of those people you want to protect and to be a guardian to, because deep down you don't trust them to make good choices with their lives.

In the last months, we became a little closer, I suppose it's how friendship are supposed to be but I'm not a big expert because the only people I call friend is Francis and basically he is also the person I feel a stupid, useless, unrequited love for.

Alfred has, again, like always, a fucking chewing gum in his mouth and as he speaks to me I drown in the smell of chemical strawberry.

"So now what are you?"

He knows about Francis. I told him, once. I still regret it, because it was pretty much humiliating, because nothing special led me to that crisis, it was just the mix has become too much for my shoulders, I guess.

Francis broke up with a girl he was dating, a sweet brunette with big eyes and a quick tongue, he never told me why, he just did, suddenly. He asked me to go out to drink something and we went to the usual pub – out of the blue, completely drunk, he asked me when will true love arrive. He always was like that, crazy like that.

He had sex with a lot of people, I never wanted to know how many, because I know I would have probably felt my stomach clenching at the idea of so many insignificant, mediocre people to have him, while I was condemned to the Land of Silence and Darkness. And Consuming Lust when alone, but yeah.

Francis, though, always believe in Love: the true one, the real one, the one.

He was still waiting for something to happen. And we was so unaware of my emotions to tell me about it.

_What do I have to do to make you want to fall in love with me?_

I swallowed, laughed, telling him he was an idiot and a pussy. That night we played, at his place, and then he asked me "No more The Clash, please... what about The Smiths?" and he sing How soon is now? to me and I tried not to cry.

And I tried to play it off fine.

The day after, when I was walking, suddenly every step was heavier and the ground harder to be on, and the air seemed too thick for me to breathe. And out of the door of the Music Faculty, I crumbled.

Like a burnt cookie shaken too much, crushed by careless childish hands.

I crumbled.

I don't know what was it, I don't know why. Probably because I was pretending I wasn't hurt, probably because I wanted to play the role of the one who doesn't care, probably because his voice was still in my head, even if I had the mp3 player screaming into my ears, maybe it was just I felt invisible, because apparently he searched everywhere except in me.

I just crumbled. I called for self destruction.

Alfred was there, coming right from his stupid Engineering lesson, which he probably spent trying to catch the attention of professor Honda, and he found me. He smiled and told me to rant a little, if I wanted, "I already think you are a dork, so it's not like you have a dignity to save." .

Well, being kind wasn't Alfred's best talent.

So, in front of a big cup of Earl Grey, in which I put thirteen sugar lumps out of nervousness, I said him everything and Alfred decided to give me some advices. They never worked but it was good to have someone who knew about the whole thing.

"Friends with benefits, I suppose."

"That sucks."

I'd like to say that at least I had sex with him but we all know this is not what I wanted, so I shut up.

Alfred continues, "How do you feel now?"

"Dazed and in a maze."

I take a cigarette and Alfred looks at me badly, he is so American some times, looking at cigarettes like they are the Antichrist but I think he owns something like three guns at home. Not to quote my beloved Ron but he needs to sort out his priorities.

When the smoke makes me feel more relaxed, even Alfred stops seeming so strict and his voice sounds more tired than worried, "You won't tell him anything, am I wrong?"

"It'd be just humiliating."

"I don't know, dude, maybe he would like to know."

"I'm not lucky like you.", I reply dryly. A part of me holds a little grudge and is jealous because Alfred confessed to professor Honda and now they have one of those healthy and funny fairytale relationships, the complete one type in which you have rough sex on the desk and eat cotton candy at the amusement park.

"Well, what's the use in a love you can't live?"

"It's not so bad."

"If you say so. - he shrugs his too big shoulders – I couldn't survive it. It'd be too unfair."

"What's fair in life anyway?"

* * *

I come home and I smell tobacco and a strange an intense tangerine scent, I overhear Francis' voice in William's bedroom and I'm not sure if I want to say hello but I also know I won't lose an occasion to see him. While I come closer to the room, though, I have to stop.

The noise of a punch. Something falls. Maybe a box.

William is screaming in rage.

Francis goes out of the room, but when he sees me, he glances down and quickly, almost mechanical, goes beyond me, avoiding my eyes. I turn to hold his arm, but I don't find the courage to follow my emotion.

Francis runs out, when I turn again I see William on the doorstep of his room, clenching his fists and his teeth. He seems a beast.

I can almost feel the blood rushing into his veins.

His exhaled breath has a thick, sharp sound. His anger makes the air electric.

"What the fuck happened?"

"Mind your own business."

"It's my business. He's my friend and you-"

"Is he?"

He raises his eyebrows and I understand.

Oh. Shit. Francis told me not to and I wanted it anyway. But, but William has no right to feel actually wounded or sad.

"What are you talking about?"

I try to pretend but he laughs in my face.

"Please, skip the act."

He shuts me up, I bite my bottom lip and clench my fists. My painted black nails are getting longer and they leave signs into my skin.

Williams breathes in, "You will never have him. Nobody will."

"What the hell did he tell you?"

"Nothing special. He likes someone now. As always. He always likes somemotherfuckingone. - he gives a little laugh, but it sounds skimpy and bitter – Maybe it's time for you to give up that fucking crush you have on him since the dawn of time, mh?"

He shows a big smirk, a wicked and cruel one.

We was always like that: always trying to break me, always so sad on his own he had to prove himself stronger than others.

I can't deny it, but I feel too humiliated. I am sure my eyes are watery.

"I am over him since years."

He nods sarcastically, "Sure you are. - he takes a pause – Give up."

"... go to hell."

I taste my own blood and I go out. Slamming the door is the closest I can get to slapping my brother's face.

Francis is right out of my house, on the wall, waiting for me, and I knew.

His smile is sad, but his eyes are more. That blue is so honest it kills me.

All this blue makes me nauseous. It's poisonous.

_And you are everywhere._

I wish I could think of something else, somebody else. I would like everything to be less beautiful, so it would not be worth it to suffer this way. I miss you, I seek you, I reject you. And in this whole situation I find myself tangled up, my mouth is full of unspoken, knotted and twisted words.

I would like to stretch my hands and find you. To reach out and touch your soul.  
... and I want to break every chain and run away.  
One way or another, it is a maze.  
However, I end up loving this maze that kills me. And I kiss this sword that pierces me and I taste this poison and I cuddle this cancer.

Blue is your colour, it always was, it will forever be.

And so the whole sky, the whole ocean and all the poems and all the songs, they are all trying to steal your colour. But to me it's yours, yours alone.

And you'll never be mine.  
"What happened?"

"Nothing. - he shrugs shoulders – He wanted to have sex but I didn't feel like it. He's just _cantankerous_."

"Cranky."

" _Cantankerous_ sounds better."

"Not with that pussy French accent.", I come closer and offer him a shy smile.

I want to kiss him.

I really want to.

But I can't.

It'd be tender but more than friendly. Friends with benefits are just friends with the sex part, right? No cuddles, no tenderness, no romanticism allowed. Isn't it?

Francis puts his hands into the jeans. They are so close-fitting, it's hard not to look at his slim legs. I want to kiss them. I want to kiss him whole.

I must have a sad expression, because he seems worried, "Did he say something mean to you again?"

"Nope. Just. Nyeh. Will is a butthole, you know."

"I know."

I think Francis and Williams are that type of friends who deep down don't admire each other, there is always a slight tiredness in how Francis speaks about my brother, an affectionate tiredness, but still it. Maybe it's just because they are ex and if you broke up with someone it means they disappointed you, somehow. Maybe it was just remembering the flaws that made the love story shatter in the past.

I wonder if Williams somehow still likes Francis.

"He said you have someone you like now."

He seems amused, he gives a brief exhausted laugh, "I told him so, yeah."

"So it's not true?"

"If I liked someone, do you think I'd get laid with you?"

I suppose I shouldn't feel hurt by this question, because he clearly didn't mean to be offensive. But my heart sinks.

And I quickly feel like I'm drowning.

"...no, you wouldn't."

So, why with William not but with me yes?

I lick my bleeding lip, mumbling.

I wasn't sure what to think. Did he chose me over my brother or something? Or did he just want to break a bond that was going on from too long?

He didn't like anyone.

I was happy.

He didn't like me either.

I already knew, but... why was my happiness always stained with bitterness?

A part of me really hoped for Francis to be happy, to find the real Love he wanted so much, even with someone else. This is true.

But the complete truth is I never stopped hoping that Love to be me.

I am so ridiculously stupid.

"Do you want to drink something?", he smiles and I nod, charmed.

"Can we go to your place later?"

I am so hungry for you.

I am so hungry. I want to eat you whole.

I want to hold tight every thing you can give me, even if they are just crumbles.

...this is the wrong way, isn't it?


	2. Chapter 2

_2._

When I wake up, I find you next to me. I slept in between your open arms, not exactly held, but enclosed, which is already more than what I would have ever considered possible.

I should be grateful, but I'm just worn out.

Your eyes are still closed and your breathe is regular and calm. Quite, soundless.

Your hair – long, wavy, gold... they seem a sweet rain, wasn't there a Myth about a girl who had sex with golden rain? - are all ruffled, tousled. I look at how they fall on the neck, gently.

You seem drawn by a painter. A cruel one, who wanted to make everyone struggle for a beauty they could never own.

As I get a little closer to your neck and chest, I can't help but crack a smile.

Your scent. Your scent is real and so close.

Tangerine, Bergamot, Violet Leaf, Nutmeg and Leather. It's sweet, it's round. It's spicy.

I breathe it and I feel better.

It's like my lungs, my chest, they are now bigger and I can feel more air into me. I feel free and home.

Your skin is pale, but slightly sand colour.

Can I pretend you are my island and I am castaway in you? It's not that far from the truth.

I kiss your chin and I hope you to sleep soundly for hours.

I kiss your Adam's apple and I hope one day you will sing for me and not only with me.

A little moan of dissent, you give me light smile, keeping your eyes still closed.

"Hey."

Another, lower, moan, a sort of muffled good morning.

"Did I wake you up.", it started out as a question but the pitch ended up apologetically.

"It's fine."

You still don't open your eyes, just lift a little your thin eyebrows. Slumber and drowsiness fur up your voice.

I hope you won't ask about me kissing you, but I suppose you decided it was okay.

I want to ask if you really liked it, yesterday night, but I can't find in me the courage to be so blunt.

My eyes linger on your hips, badly covered by your sheets. From the hip-bone, in the sweet curve that melts into your pubis, starts one of your tattoos: a lily, which makes me chuckle internally because only a French man could ever draw a flower symbol of purity near his penis. Before today, I always saw only the highest part, when you stretched and it showed from the jeans, even the first time we had sex, I couldn't pay it enough attention. On your left scapula, instead, there's the silhouette of a bird. You call it 'Pierre', but you use to call almost everything like this. On the elbow, a little black heart inscribed in a circle of words, written in French and in an handwriting style- useless to say I don't know what it says. I asked you, but you laughed nervously and changed topic.

You never open your heart enough to me.

The corners of your mouth curl up in a soft smile.

I'd like to hold you, I'd like to tell you everything and you to feel the same. It's, again, just a wishful thinking, but I can't stop keeping this sick hope near my heart, because it's comforting and warm.

Because it's all I have, after all.

"Coffee?"

You nod, sleepy, "I'll prepare it now..."

"I can make it too, you know?"

You raise an eyebrow and open just one eye, to give me the more distrustful and skeptical look ever, "God forbid..."

I take a pillow and push it on your face, cursing, you wake up completely and free yourself.

"You are even more peevish the morning after!"

You laugh a little, gaining a pout and a kick under the covers.

"Okay, time to attack!"

You hold my wrist, pushing me more on the mattress, then come over me, standing above me and looking surprised, as I let out a gasp and a moan mixed. Your surprise changes into satisfaction, when I try to move slightly against you, on your face rises a little smirk.

"Before breakfast, would you like a second round?"

"If you insist..."

"Mh, if _I_ insist? - you bite your lips, slowly, not really aggressively, just sensually and I think here lies the sum of all our differences – You are incredible really."

Sure, I am incredible, I am a liar.

I am two different people and none of them is happy.

The one who loves you but can't say it out loud or the one who just shags you because his life is empty... tell me, who is sadder? Who is more pitiful?

Your lips gently kissing my neck, your teeth biting near my veins. I moan, I scream in pleasure, while I get drunk with the passion you put in it.

It hurts a little, but it makes it only better.

I can't stop feeling like your are trying to open me and I daydream of you drinking my soul from my skin. An higher moan cuts the air, as your hands touches me.

Could I become intoxicated by you?

I go into raptures, as your blue eyes catch mine. I am yours.

Can you feel it too? How lucky and powerful you are?

No, you don't. You return to biting my neck and your hands set on fire my skin. You are made of flame, but, apparently, this is not enough for you to realize how painfully my heart is burning.

Ah... Oh god, what are you doing now?

"Let... let go the ear."

You whisper, softly, "Why?"

I don't even know the answer.

It scares me that after two night you already understood so well my map.

It astonished and let me hopeless.

And I wonder how much time it will take for you to understand and, then, to leave me with this uneasy misery.

You don't obey me, though. Your hot tongue is licking my ear, making it warm – while shivers run through my legs like icy thunders – sucking my lobe.

I swallow all my voice, I want to become mute and hide.

It's not different from when I play with you, tasting defeat in how the songs never reminds you of me. It's not different from lingering near you, at the table, every time you meet a new sweetheart or a new warm body. It's not different from when, just sixteen, I jerked off to your voice, with the bitter aftertaste of being aware those moans were provoked by my brother.

Being in this bed with you it's just eating crumbs from the ground again. It's another way to climax while dying.

You stop.

And I open my eyes again.

Your hands on my cheek, sweetly, "Art, something wrong?"

"Yeah. - I nod, too swiftly to be honest – It's good."

"I know this. - ouch, you'll get buried in your fucking self-esteem... and why are your eyes so sad? - But you seem somewhere else."

No, no, I am right here.

I think I am in this same point since always.

"I am just a little... impatient."

And restless. And exhausted. And in love.

Your blue eyes blink and you leave my face. My cheek feel cold and petrified.

It's just a second, though, because a second later, you are at my cock, licking its base and then going to court the head. I try to shout, but my words are soundless and my mouth empty.

You wrap it gently with your lips.

If I don't die today, I will be immune to heart-attacks for all my life, Jesus Fucking Christ.

A moist moan escapes from me, while I try to... I don't even know what.

Stop you? Why?

Why I feel like I'm just exploiting you?

Why I feel like I'm the tormentor to an unaware victim?

I feel like I'm melting and my head gets so numb again. I dare to look at you, at your gleaming golden locks, resting on my thighs, at your closed eyes, enjoying my taste – I feel your fingers teasing my bollocks. Your sweet scent is everywhere.

You bite me slightly and I shudder, vibrating.

I feel like the chords of the guitar under your hands.

I am completely under your power and control.

I bury my hands in the sheets, holding them, clenching my teeth to avoid screaming. Your mouth sucking me, your hands brushing by my skin.

It's scorching.

I grew up believing in Hellfire, now I discover what burns is Heaven.

And I'm defenceless.

Arching my back, I hold your hair and push your head more against me. I overhear your moans getting wetter, more excited, your tongue quicker and more ravenously tasting me.

Are you hungry for me too?

I feel my blood hotter and it's like my body is completely melting in a puddle of electricity.

My gasps and pants run into the room, to the air, they reach the ceiling.

I almost don't recognize my voice.

Who is this person inside me?

Another touch of your tongue, and I come.

I almost feel like fainting, my stomach is still tangled, like a knot of corrosive and toxic emotions. You lie again next to me, over me.

You smile and I can't control me: I kiss you. Deeply.

I feel your hand on my chest, like a silent protest, probably you are unsure about snowballing, but I couldn't care less. I want to kiss you, your whole mouth. I want to be yours and you to be mine.

Voracious.

I fling my arms round your neck, keeping you close.

You are sweet. You are everything I ever wanted.

_So, please, please, please..._

* * *

I can't swim.

Which, actually, doesn't make me particularly scared, since I don't exactly spend my time near the water. I suppose I could be nervous if I had to overfly the ocean on an airplane, but, except that, I am pretty much confident it's more probable me to die a natural death.

But once I almost drowned.

I was fifteen and it was summer.

I was on the grass, letting the sun making me warm after that stupid cold spring. I was already pretty much a fucking outcast: something amongst my collection of skulls t-shirts, the green Mohawk and my horrible habit of being a blunt asshole allergic to diplomacy made me extremely unpopular during High School. I didn't feel lonely, though.

More like, I didn't feel the need to have people around.

Near the grass where I was lying in the park, there was a big pool, where the nice kids of my classroom used to go to show off, like a bunch of peacocks in a new Baywatch season. And they looked at me badly.

The girls said I was probably a pervert who would have hurt them. The boys comforted them saying that I was clearly or a virgin or a faggot.

At the time, Francis was a friend, but not a lot more than that. Our bond was still normal, boring and healthy.

I liked him, but I think I still wasn't in love, because I remember how things changed quickly after that day.

Anyway. Those boys spent the time snickering, when looking at me, a mocking, cruel, sharp smile was perpetually on their lips. They were the type of people who wear their souls always on their face: the confident ones.

I don't know why but those smiles felt poisonous. A strange bitterness took over me, suddenly and persistently.

And those cruel grins were like tattooed on my skin. Heavy tattoos.

I kept them, like a burden, all the afternoon, until they went away.

I didn't even manage to get up and go away before them, I really did just wait for them to go. The actions that followed were somehow really stupid .

I took off my heavy-duty boots, my baggy trousers and the black t-shirt. I stayed a moment on the edge of the pool, moving my feet in the chill chemical-blue water.

I gave a sigh, dangling my legs and swinging slowly, there I entered in the water.

It was cold.

My mouth opened up automatically and bubbles came out, like a bubble wrap mute scream.

Anyway, I wasn't really scared at first. I felt at home for a second, closing my eyes and letting the slow current caressing me.

It reminded me of a song and I felt calm.

It was only when I realized my feet still wasn't touching the ground, that I stiffed and shivered; I tried to breathe again, but my lungs refused and I felt trapped. It was not like water, it was like cement.

I tried to go on but I only moved in the same point.

I was like a stupid insect trapped in a spiderweb. My legs and arms moved uselessly and my head, after the shot of adrenaline and panic, went foggy.

All that blue... I was dying into the blue.

Thinking about it now, it's pretty metaphorical. Or ironic.

Or like a punch in the guts, how you prefer to call it.

A few seconds after, when my sight was too blurred, I felt someone taking my waist- my neck felt weaker. I woke up when Francis slapped me.

I had the sensation someone broke a thick layer of glass around my lungs, freeing me, but every thing was still confused and dark. Only his voice was clear.

"Arthur! Arthur!"

I almost smiled, missing his accent.

I wanted to reply with something witty, but I felt my stomach **writhing and I puked water.**

Francis smiled and held me close. I let my head rest on his shoulders, feeling his curls on my wet back, I enjoyed his breathe and his heartbeat.

"Thank God...", he whispered in my ear.

My Francis.

I was too weak to hold him, but I felt my hand shivering, willing to keep him close.

He looked at me, stroking sweetly my cheek with the back of his hand.

Blue saved me from the blue. His eyes were just like the water.

Oh, not that I learned to swim anyway, just like I can't avoid drowning into his eyes... but that day Francis legitimately saved me.

Pretty sappy, isn't it?

But this was not what hit me the most that day.

He held my face into his hands, forcing me to look in those eyes – for a second I was so sure he to kiss me, because he was Francis and Francis was free and Francis was always kissing someone. But he didn't.

His mouth was open but the lips were distorted in an angry grimace.

"Don't do this. Not anymore."

His voice was not the same as always: not soft, not smooth, not singing. Not pure honey.

It was harsh and sharp. It was hurt.

I tried to focus but I didn't understand.

Then the anger melt into a plea, his fingers were gently against me and I perceived he was afraid, afraid to lose me.

Francis was afraid I were dead.

"I-"

"You?"

He hesitated and never completed the sentence.

He gave me a weak, fake smile, " _Tu veux aller prendre un café?_ "

I blinked, while a sad grip hurt me inside.

Francis often put one or two French words while speaking, maybe to highlight one specific shade of the word, maybe because he liked the sound of his original language way more than the English, he found so barbarian; but there were only two moments when Francis spoke completely in French: when he was so angry the instinct gained the upper hand, prevailing, and when we was utterly terrified.

So scared only the language of his mom and home calmed him.

So scared he searched protection.

And I was the guilty party.

I accepted the coffee, feeling a boisterous feeling pulsing inside me. And looking at those blue eyes, I felt I found someone to return to, someone who wanted me near.

* * *

Francis always had that very French affection for melancholic stuff.

Sad old movies, with meaningful dialogues left in the emptiness, the black and white photographs of gargoyles and lifeless bridges, strange girl singers with hoarse alto voice and low heartbroken rhythm... stuff like this. He always said he loves Beauty and Beauty is quite often sad.

But it was not only this...

He has a tender heart, prone to feelings, and this is not easy to deny, exactly like Tattoos, piercings and leather jacket can't hide completely his clean, sweet baby face.

He is so much purer on the inside.

Exactly where people usually bury their rotten true selves, he is pure.

Francis believes in Love with the stubbornness of a child.

It will arrive, it will arrive- he is so sure – the completeness that only finding your other half allows. The other half... what a presumptuous concept. How arrogant.

The idea that someone is born to fit with you, your hands to meet and entwine, the idea of someone waiting for you.

The idea of not being truly alive without the other.

And people like me? What are we?

A spare piece? A left-over? Overproduction result?

If Francis' half is someone else, which is clear by now, then what am I?

All this longing for him is gonna destroy me.

Can't I have sense on my own and being happy and complete and alive even just by myself? Do I really have no hope left?

I feel tormented by thoughts I don't really understand and I know I'd need to talk about it with a friend, a real one, somebody who understands. But that Friend is Francis.

About this I could never speak with him.

So what am I supposed to do? Crashing against myself in a motherfucking emotional drive into?

Francis plays with my elbow, touching it with a pen.

He wears glasses, because he's reading. He loves reading, just like me. And this is important, because when I was a kid William often took my book and tear them apart or bury them, but Francis always bought me another copy of the book.

He especially likes French and Russian novels. He stated often that some things only French and Russian were able to do in the world and writing novels was one of those.

I said that clearly winning wars was not instead.

His favorite novel is about a Parisian prostitute that falls in love with a young man but basically abandon him to save his reputation, then she finds out she has MTB – or what was that thing everyone died of in 1800 – and she died after he discovered the truth. So they both suffered as hell, basically. And lot of adjectives.

Francis loves adjectives.

Francis loves passion, baroque and romantic pain.

When I read that book, I felt like something took my stomach and put it in a grinder.

No happy-endings, no last time saviors and eternal love only meant lifelong suffering. So why searching something like this so much?

Why if Francis' idea of Love is so sad he still waits for it?

...how could he want something like what I feel?

Does he wants my same kind of happiness: the one in which you are grateful for your heart being ripped out from your chest and eat in front of you? Yes, sure, I am happy I have him, loving him makes everything worth-living, but... all this pain I endure, how can he want it too?

Francis pokes me again, looking concerned, " _Arthur_ , are you okay?"

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

You, you, it's always you.

"Nothing in particular: exams, french fries, how fucking underrated the ninth doctor is..."

"Yeah. - he glares, a little annoyed – You know? You suck at lying."

"I wasn't..."

"When you are thinking about that stuff, you are usually nervous, which makes you talk nineteen to the dozen and yell, well except fries, in which case you just force me to choose between cooking for you and going in one of those awful fish and chips take away to pick up them. Anyway, you were spacing out, which, after years knowing you, I dare to say I can interpret as sadness mixed with anguish."

… I hate him. I really really do.

I gave a sigh, "It's not a dialogue I can have with you."

"Oh. - he seems a little offended, but not too much, he knows he is practically the only person I can talk to – Well, unless you suddenly became a fan of the Iron Lady, I swear I won't spit in your face, so..."

Biting the inside of my cheek, I mutter, "What's so enchanting about Love?"

"... what?"

"Why does everyone seem to look so much for something so useless?"

Francis frowns, "Did you really think you couldn't speak about feelings with me?"

"You are Love's biggest fan, so I suppose it's more likely sign up for a never-ending lecture...", I shrug my shoulders, pretending not to care.

Where is my Academy Award for Best Actor?

Francis raises an eyebrow, "Why do you think love is useless? It's not."

"Last time I checked it's more likely to make your life worse than better. I don't know, I think a degree in medicine is a little more useful."

"You don't have to see it only in terms of better and worse."

"...excuse me?"

"Van Gogh suffered of mayor depression, got opheliac for Gauguin and cut off one of his ears, but, well, I think no one would ever say this was useless, even though it made his mental health more or less a latrine."

"I bet Van Gogh wasn't enthusiast about it."

"I don't think he would have really changed it."

I flip and a strange, mechanical, metal cold laugh escapes from my mouth. I feel outraged.

Insulted to such a deep and intimate level that I feel my heart getting harder.

"Oh well sure, you clearly are in people's head. I forgot Francis "I will fuck the whole city of London" Bonnefoy is the cleverest and most sensitive person on the motherfucking earth. How did I dismiss such an important detail, I wonder."

My voice is arsenic.

All the poison of my selfish desire to be loved is pouring out from me. Like pus.

My condensed sadness .

But Francis is calm.

He blinks, slowly, his eyelids go up and down without worrying. He is not reacting, he doesn't really want to bicker on this point... he doesn't want to fight. He just looks at me, with the expression of somebody who knows he is right and is looking to a tornado he is immune to.

"That pain belonged to him. It was a part of him he couldn't get rid of. It was too deeply-rooted."

I feel my hands getting weaker and my anger washes away, runs from my skin.

It just stops existing. My chest hurts from the tension of before, my pride shivers with shame for my lack of self-control.

Francis continues, "And, you know, there are pains that make us more human. They make us feel alive. - he lowers his eyes, and it's good, because I am looking at his lips now, he sucks them lightly – I could bear be sad all my life, but I could never live without feeling alive."

I know it.

I know it too well.

But how does he?

The right corner of his mouth ticks a little, "And being in love is more or less that. You feel like in heaven and in hell at the same time, but it's like you never felt anything so intense before. Like a drug."

It sounds sappy. But it's true. And I know.

"Cheap cocaine for the soul.", I joke.

Francis smiles, he takes his glasses off. He ruffles his hair and takes a deep breathe in to relax. I remember his ribs, I remember the moles on his skin.

"One day, anyway, you'll fall in love and understand it all.", he says to me.

"Maybe. Don't know. I am not cut out for love."

"You will. - he chuckles – And he will be a lucky man."

My heart sinks. I feel an iron ball on my lungs. My Adam's apple becomes heavy as stone.

No, don't tell me so.

Don't use nice words, don't be so kind, don't tell me I'd be a good match.

Because, boy, if you say so, it'd be just more painful waking up everyday without you loving me.

If I'd be so good, I am afraid one day I will really say it, then love me, love me, love me. Make me sick with all the love I deserve, break me and drive me crazy loving me too much...

Love me.

Don't sugarcoat your rejection.

Loving Francis is already mixing honey and poison, and then eat them both.

"I don't think so..."

"Well, you'll have to avoid cooking for him or he will run away to save his life."

I slap his head with his book.

"You don't hit people with _Notre-Dame de Paris_. You could kill them."

"Do you prefer _Les Misérables_?"

He holds my arm and brings me close to him, he kisses me. Again.

He bites and sucks my lips, slowly, like he never tasted ones so good. His hand on my waist.

I am charmed, once again.

His skin gets hotter, as I touches him too, one hand on his face and one on his legs.

Francis' tongue into my mouth feels big, maybe even too much, it fills me, it violates me, it makes me utterly weak. And aroused.

When we separate, I pant heavily, "You never have had enough, do you?"

"Never.", he smirks, kissing me again.

I feel his smile against my lips and it fills my heart in ways I didn't consider possible.

I feel like light is entering from the cracks on my stone skin.

"Are you so... - I kiss him too, slowly, sweetly, I can't even get sad - ...persistent... with everyone?"

He stops a second.

He gulps and his voice sounds wrinkled and rusty, "If truth be told, no."

And when he says it I let out a little laugh, a low, fake one. I kiss him to make him mute.

I want to think he is joking, I want to hope he is lying.

I don't want to be special and still not enough.

I don't want to nurture my wishful thinking with other hope.

_Don't be fooled by the signs, don't read in between the lines._

I am afraid I can fall even more in love with him... I am afraid I already am.


	3. Chapter 3

_3._

William looks at me as if I were trash.

It's not a change, though. But this time there is a real reason and a part of me wonders if I'm actually guilty.

Francis and my brother didn't talk after that quarrel and, at this point, it's pretty obvious Francis made clear they won't have sex again. He decided to stop the "friends with benefits" thing with him.

Which, thinking about it, it's strange.

I suppose he wants to avoid to make it last too long, because it's years that in spare times without girls or boyfriends, they use each other that way, but, at the same time, I wonder what really changed now. And I am sure I am not so goddammit beautiful that he might have decided to fuck only with me.

...is this an exclusive thing? Or is it open?

Friends with benefits usually are open, right? But then why did Fr...?

Argh.

It's two months now. And Francis never did it with somebody else, during this time. I didn't ask him, but I'm sure.

It's something in the way he smiles a little, shrugging his shoulders and saying he is free that night. It's something about how is voice gets murkier and lower when he comes, keeping me close on my hips. And, last but not least, how dark the bite-marks and the bruises on my neck are, how deeply his territory is marked.

These details make it sure to me.

This whole thing became a lot more intimate and heartfelt than how I originally planned.

Probably more than what he expected.

And for sure more than how I imagined.

Again, I am scared. Yes, I am the king of cowards.

I am a coward and I am also addicted.

What if I start to get something true with Francis and then he gets tired? What if I am giving this more importance and, actually, he doesn't? What if I get used to him wanting me so much and then...

Oh, but, here we go again... I perfectly know he will find somebody else and love somebody else. Also, I hope him to be happy, really happy.

But I also wanted him so much- I thought only about how I could get at least a bite of his love and passion and I didn't consider how deeply it would have hurt the emptiness when he will leave.

How deeply it will wound me one day to see my white neck without his signs?

William enters in the bathroom, gives me a disgusted glare and sits on the toilet bowl.

"Can't you wait until I finished shaving?", I blurt out, grumbling.

"Should I give a fuck?"

"You really don't have the slightest respect of personal boundaries, do you."

"I don't steal at least."

" _Steal_? - I turn to him, scandalized – Steal? Are we really getting this discussion? What the hell."

He lights a cigarette and spit the smoke in my face, "You've always been like that."

"Like what? - I wash my face quickly, I will finish after – Also aren't you a little too old for being jealous? Seriously."

"It's been always like this: you come and then it's all 'Arthur Arthur', 'Arthur this, Arthur that', it's always so. You can't have your own people but you need to take away them from me."

I heard this speech before. About our mother.

And I suppose this is why I feel like I'm getting trapped in one of his childish tantrums.

William and my mother used to quarrel often, even breaking glasses, dishes. She slapped him more than once and he he told her she was just a bitch so much I think my mom stopped keeping score.

My analyst would have said William never get over his Oedipus complex, but the truth wasn't exactly like that. He didn't want so desperately to be loved by my mom, he just couldn't accept she to show more affection towards me.

It was just a silent rivalry I didn't even care for.

I suppose somehow Francis has always been somebody who was more his than mine and, even when we became really friends and the bond got deeper, William had the sex. He had something I didn't have.

I suppose, this time, I really hurt him.

And now he tries to hurt me back.

It's fine, I suppose, humans are animals and they need to be loved and to be in control and to hurt the ones who hurt them. They need the satisfaction of power.

He is so afraid, he is exactly like me.

But this is why I can't save him.

I can't give up my only chance to be happy, I can't give up this blissful suicide.

I go out of the bathroom and I take a deep breath, before, crawling on the door, and sitting on the floor of my room. I let my eyes scan the walls, the books in the shelves, the CDs everywhere, the music posters- nothing changed too much in the last years. Some new fandom stuff, some new movies, and at a certain point I had the human decency of hide the stuff of that terrible phase known as "thirteen years old", but the rest is the same. The same yellowish walls, the same big window with the wood stained black for all the cigarettes I extinguished on it, the same shy light – it makes me feel like I'm part of this room myself, like wallpaper or a lamp or an old coffee stain in a dusty corner.

I remember growing up between this spaces, maybe I'm just another liquid, that growing up took the shape of his place. I can't know.

I remember the hours spent near the window listening to music or playing it, when we still had cats living in the neighborhood and they used to came at the window for finding cuddles and food, the ambitions and the fantasies, the wet dreams and the shattered poems. I remember every detail.

It's like the walls are all over closely written with my story.

And the common point was never trusting, never feeling really at peace. I spent my life misplaced.

And my only home is in the arms of somebody who doesn't love me.

* * *

I swear on Hussie, Alfred's chewing gums are nauseating.

I would rather vomit my own stomach than eating one of those things. They are so unnaturally looking, unnaturally smelling and probably unnaturally tasting, I think the main ingredients are petroleum, plastic and barbie dolls.

Not only this, but he is eating without spitting his damn barbie gum, it's disgusting.

"Do you even kiss professor Honda with that thing inside the mouth or you spit it before?"

He frowns, "Obviously I don't. I am no more in middle school."

...so he did.

I facepalm, sighing heavily, "You are beyond redemption. I just hope there's a special place in hell for people like you."

"Well, I will probably end up in the circle of the sodomites, while you are a commie, so for sure you'll go in a worse way place."

"For the last time, - I am exhausted, I swear – I am an anarchist, not a commie. Also, public free health care is not communism."

He parrots me, then returns to attack his brownies with the fork.

"Kiku is never mean to me."

"He is even too kind with you, he must be a saint or something."

"Well, I am sure Francis has a lot of patience too, you are more or less the human version of a cat biting the family jewels, speaking about your congeniality, I mean..."

A good kick in the knee shuts him up for some moments, in which I finish to drink my coffee.

"...also, Francis is not my boyfriend."

"But. - he mumbles, eating the whipped cream – You and he... well, you go out every night. And often it's only the two of you and you end up... - he whistles loudly and I suppose this is how in Texas they say 'having sex' - … so maybe he might also become. I don't know."

"I know you don't know."

"...thanks."

I groan, "It's just I'd rather not foster illusions."

"I don't see why he shouldn't fall for you, I mean, apart from your eyebrows, your horrible human skills and your complete lack of sweetness, you are not that bad."

Another kick.

It's even useless, because he will probably never learn just how annoying he is.

I look quickly at the clock on the mobile.

"I might call him a second, I mean, just to ask him if it's all settled for tonight."

Alfred rolls his eyes to the ceiling, "And maybe hearing his voice?"

A death glare is enough to make him stop without using the third kick.

The mobile ring and I find myself smiling a little, how idiotic, actually, smiling against a mobile screen, waiting for somebody to pick up, thinking about all the perfect lines and pitches and maybe at something non-nonchalantly suggestive to say. I imagine his expressions, his words, his reactions, I imagine him being happy to hear me and his soft voice curling sweetly, he always speak like he is singing.

I am still smiling like the stupid I am, when I hear the voice.

"Hello?"

It's not Francis' voice.

I hang up.

For some moments I feel nothing, even Alfred's worried comments and questions barely reach me. Everything is distant and muffled.

I am trapped in a glass cage.

I am put on mute.

My feelings storm inside me, but it's unclear and I am not sure which words to use.

And I know I hoped for too much, "It was not him..."

"This means nothing."

"I know."

And I'm honest: I know this means nothing, maybe he is at the university and a friend picked up, maybe he forgot the mobile somewhere, maybe it's just one of the thousand cousins and friends he always has around. It's not strictly important if he is with somebody else that way, actually.

What destroys me is how much this hurts.

Even the doubt, even the suspect, without any proof, sets me on fire and makes me hurt and empty.

I did something really stupid, exposing myself so much in a thing – I knew – had no future nor reason to be. And it's not important if it is another person now, I just got stabbed again by the reality that he will find one and about how much my happiness depends on him.

I feel really like I put myself on the stage and the play for tonight is my self humiliation.

...did I really allowed myself to feel irreplaceable?

* * *

I don't know what I'm doing.

My body feels full of toxic, dark water. I am full of black.

My feet are heavy, my legs are tired. I walk into a club, a random one, a new one. And I'm more undressed than dressed, it's like I'm inviting people to look at me. It's what I want, actually. I want to feel desirable, enticing.

I sit alone and I wait for someone. Anyone.

_There's a club if you'd like to go, you could meet somebody who really loves you_... right? The wrong way, once again and like always.

I wanted someone to like me, no, non just that, to love more than everything else; but, above that, I wanted to prove myself that I was not so entwined with Francis, not so dominated by my feelings for him.

To show myself I was free.

I drink a little, not too much, I don't even feel like putting anything in my mouth tonight. I am nauseous, like my whole soul is floating into acid.

The song pulses in my ear, making me sick. Classical bad rhythm, classical words about sexiness. But tonight it's just a game, so I suppose it's a good soundtrack.

Alone as I am, there's a boy on the other side of the counter: strange hair, blonde, so light it's probably dyed, skinny as a fucking stick, he drinks a beer and doesn't have really the courage to talk to anyone. He is dressed in a sort of military outfit and I wonder if he comes from somewhere far away abroad.

He is not like Francis, not even in the slightest way.

No deep charm, not soft movements, not those eyes that can read into every soul.

He is just a person, one person like everyone else in this world – and they all seem so faceless and tasteless and colorless in my mind. All I want, all I really adore and desire is that strong, intoxicating blue.

But I can't have it.

A strange bitterness pierces my stomach. I suppose I should have already got used to it, but somehow it hurts every time I remember.

I swallow all my tension and decide he is the right one for the wrong move.

I try to remember all the movies I saw with men walking charmingly and seductively, but nothing comes to my mind, and so I just ask the barman to pay for him a drink, when the blond boy turns to me and his eyes widen, my stomach becomes an iron maiden of turmoil and regret. But, how do they say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

"Hey.", my voice sounds strange.

Is _this_ even me?

* * *

I remember a lot of details and this is a problem sometimes, because details are the worst daggers.

They seem harmless. Innocuous.

But they are not.

You can't be tortured by what you don't remember, you can't be haunted by colors you never saw. But once you saw how the hair of the person you love shines under the light, how the sun changes a little its nuance from honey to wheat, once you learn the constellations of that person's moles and little scars or you can even imagine their voice saying things they never told you because you know their voice so well, than, at that exact point, you can't escape from all the things you know. Add to this, you know that person so well you could say if they will like or not a movie, a book, anything, even a praline so that, when you saw them, you think about that person. You just learn to do the math, you just think about all the details you know and you have a mosaic.

You know that person and you love her or him.

And, soon, they are everywhere.

Now, tell me, if they don't love you, where can you go?

Your heart is useless as ever and your mind won't help you, because the more you think, the more details about that person your brain will shower you with.

And you will drown.

And you will remember everything.

Even the first time that you talked, I mean, really talked, not just hellos and welcomes... We were still young and William still barely let us alone enough to know each other, so I still consider that day extremely lucky.

Even if, on a second thought, it was the first step of the ruin.

I was near the big window in the living room, with an huge fairytale book I never opened again once I finished it because it was genuinely terrifying. William went out, blabbering something confusing about going to take a pizza and some ice-cream. I didn't care too much about it, so, after he slammed the door, I returned to read.

"Hey..."

I turned and I saw, near the door of the kitchen, Francis.

He looked more androgynous, when he was younger, and he really seemed an angel, but I didn't trust anyone and I replied defensively, "Hello."

"What are you reading?"

"About a girl who wears red shoes and those are bewitched, so she is forced to dance forever until somebody chop her feet."

I answered dryly, hoping him to go away. William would have.

Francis didn't.

"I like red. - he commented - You know that anciently, they used to paint the Madonna with red shoes?"

I blinked, "I didn't know."

He smiled widely, "Well, you could thank me for having taught you something!"

I snorted, "No way."

His eyes were luminous. I felt a spark in me.

" _S'il vous plaît_?", he smiled and chirped.

I felt uneasy refusing something to him, also because he was so pretty I couldn't bear to really look at him. My cheeks were slightly flushed.

"What do you want?"

He smirked, all proud of his puppy eyes and nice voice, like all the cute kids. He pointed the index finger to the air and claimed, with his voice a little moved, but completely honest, what his wish was.

I remember how he was a little nervous, trying to hide with a smile a little trembling corner of his mouth.

"I want you to talk to me more..."

* * *

The day Francis broke up with William, William tore down his bedroom's door with a kick and my father told him he needed to calm the fuck down. I thought he was cold, because it's normal to feel upset when abandoned, but growing up, I understood what my father really meant: things will be shitty anyway, so might as well avoid to add another damage having to pay for a new door.

It was a good advice: calm the fuck down.

I suppose this is what I am trying to do: calming down, making things cooler.

My attempt, anyway, was unsuccessful.

I suppose it's like this often: we think we are trying to calm down and instead we are kicking the door.

Being in a bed with the strange blond boy of the bar is more like adding insult to injury, because not only I don't prove myself I can be independent from my feelings for Francis', but every thrust this man gives it's just a confirm that I belong to him.

I can't stop thinking about him and about how much he is not here.

His absence is heavier than a presence.

And it's scary and bewildering in such an awful way.

Awful, yes, this is the only word in my mind now.

I feel this man's breathe on my neck and it's moist and too hot and I just want Francis.

He touches me and his hands feels weird like they are invading me and I just want Francis.

His tongue rushes on my neck and I want him to wash away all Francis' smell but the more he does, the more I feel close to panic and my lungs feel smaller.

His trusts makes me bite the pillow – the scent of an anonymous hotel room, mint and soap – and I just want Francis' perfume. I want him. I want him.

This man becomes quicker, he holds me tight and whispers in my ear I'm amazing, I don't care, no, I won't call you daddy, no... no.

I felt full of darkness as I entered in the club, but now I just feel empty. He is banging some flesh costume for the black hole I have instead of the heart.

Emptiness all over me.

He keeps touching me and I bite my bottom lip, so much that it really hurts and I taste my own blood and it drops on the pillows and the anonymous white hotel sheets. I just want it to end up soon.

I want all the pain to go away with his dick.

The wrong way, once again.

I tried to soothe my pain and I only made it harder.

The blond man starts to move really fast and furious and I let out a scream, he pushes his hand in my mouth. I feel almost suffocating, his fingers are big and I breathe ponderously... I just want him to finish soon.

I just want him to change my insides, to delete Francis from my body. And since I can't be clean again, since love stained me so deeply, I just wish him to make me so dirty I won't see those traces anymore.

I hold the sheets. I don't want to think about Francis.

At.

Least.

For.

One.

Fucking.

Second.

Let me free... Let me free.

The man uses his other hand and pulls my hair, thrusting so deeply and rudely I have to clench my teeth, he rears up and with a liberating shout comes.

_Finally_ is all I think of.

He's still inside, as I feel my chest crushing: nothing changed.

I'd still run to Francis in a heartbeat. I still belong to him, completely.

I could do anything and this simple truth wouldn't change.

A single, heavy, noisy sigh escapes from my mouth and, with the man's cock still inside me, I bend down, because all my strength abandoned me. And I weep.

He doesn't say anything, though. He doesn't get offended nor panics, he doesn't even ask me what happened, because it's clear and he knows already even without saying anything. Because he is alone just like me.

And all the alone people know there are only two reasons if one goes to a pub and tries to have sex with a stranger, and it was obvious I wasn't doing it for fun. I just wanted to forget and he too probably, even if he doesn't cry outside, on the inside I can't say.

It's all awful. And I want my Francis.

Because he is what makes the world beautiful and I don't want anything to change.

The man throws the used condom into the dustbin and, when I stop crying, asks me if I want cigarette. And I think it's his way to say that I must be one of the best of us and find happiness in misery.

* * *

As I arrive at Francis' place, I feel the pieces of me collapsing.

It's not easy to explain, but here we go: I was cracked. Since the moment I heard that voice at the mobile, I felt a terrible crack opening in me, like one of those on ice, when it breaks, but I was still in one piece, somehow ; I ignore what was, if thin air, gravity, but I was still whole, with this crack in me, and I imagine it's like how do feel those people who survive an ictus and go around with a fucking thing that inside them stopped working correctly, but they go on wondering when another piece will break. I was going on with that rift, that split, into me.

It was painful, even breaking, because I clearly felt like, when breathing in, my lungs were too big and were pulling and stretching the pieces of the cracked glass inside me. All my ribcage was pure pain. All the pieces were together, but I was already destroyed.

And I went in that club and I tried my best to put some glue into the crack and to make it less hurtful and I did my best, I swear...

But everything was hard, because it's not easy going around, walking, living, when inside even breathing is opening again a wound and getting closer to crash completely.

I felt myself crumpling.

And, without even noticing, I came here.

Francis' opens the door and his eyes widen with terror.

"Jesus Christ, Arthur, what happened?!"

It started raining and I'm completely soaked. My bottom lip is still bleeding and he probably thinks I had a fight. My dull heart feels happy again.

In misery.

Without any hope left.

Because I'm home.

He comes closer, "Enter, quick. I will give you new clothes and..."

I kiss him, I bring him against me. He tastes my blood, he tries to resist, but here I insist. I hold him and the rain makes us wet.

Kissing under the rain, I feel the cold opening my seams and letting love enter.

Francis asks me what happened, he asks it moaning into my mouth.

"Just shut up."

He is made for me and I'm made for him.

I know I am an extra piece, that I am not the one and he will find someone he really loves, but now this person is not here and I love him so much.

And I know, oh I know, nobody will ever love Francis more than me.

Not because he is not lovable or because I am special, but because this is so self-destructive, so pure, so intense... I really can't believe a feeling stronger than this can exist.

I am heading for a meltdown.

"Bed."

It's not an order, it's not a plea – it's the result of what we are.

He nods, but his look is sad, because he sees in my eyes there's something wrong.

We make love, tonight, and it's like I don't even care anymore if he will discover me, if my undisclosed feelings are shining through my eyes or not. I just want him.

And he is inside me, and after I'm inside him, and then again.

And our voices get rusty and weak, because we use them too much, and our hearts get tired because they beat too fast. And Francis' scent is all over.

We are all over.

I lick my lips, riding him, I bend on his open mouth and kiss it deeply, and, as he kisses me back, thrusting, I swear I am in Paradise again.

And all the pieces of my soul are shattered in that bed, but I don't even care, because for tonight is our bed. Our and our alone.

The blue reflection of the city lights makes his eyes even more beautiful and beastly. He sinks his teeth into my neck and I moan in pleasure.

I want him to mark me.

I want to always keep inside the memory of this night.

We stop only when the first colour of the dawn enters in the window and I feel all my limbs devastated by pleasure. Desire still lingers on our sweat drops.

I kiss Francis softly and I feel his breath shaking, shivering bitterly.

I fall into his arms and he hugs me, kissing my head, all my hair, sweetly. He shields me with his affection.

I feel home.

He kisses my closed eyelids and I am sleepy into his arms. For a second, I think I am going to really fall asleep, because I am terribly tired and there is not a better place to sleep than Francis' arms. And I wouldn't be anywhere but here.

His whisper is almost too weak for me to catch it.

"I love you... I always did."

I open my eyes, thinking I am dreaming or I am definitively crazy and I should eventually check for professional help again; but when I blink, Francis is startled, stutters and is suddenly pale like I was fucking returned to life after being crucified. And there I understand he really said it.

"What?"

This is all I can say and I see him swallowing and scratching his nape so nervously he doesn't even seem himself.

No smooth and suave Francis Bonnefoy hitting on every nice girl or boy.

But a scared Francis.

A Francis who is trying to find a good lie to use, his eyes runs on me and he almost lets me go, like I were suddenly some kind of scorching hot kitchen iron utensil.

"I, _Je_..."

His blue eyes are suddenly so pure because of the fear.

I try to come closer , he just smiles, with a stupid fake smile, he ruffles his hair and his voice is so tense and taut I feel like he could break down and cry in any moment.

My Francis seems so fragile right now.

...just like me.

"...if you don't want, I..."

He can't complete the sentence, because there is not a good answer.

He would like to tell me that, if I want him to, he will stop to love me. But it'd be a lie: he would just hide it.

And I know, because it's what I would say too.

He would like to say this doesn't have to ruin our friendship.

And I know because it's what I thought for years.

Tears start to drop from my eyes, they've been so swollen and tired for so long, and the tears are round and salty and they fall on my skin. It's only as I see them on my hands that I truly realize what I heard.

What he said.

And the first instinct is not believing him, because if I believe and it's not true, I can't even think what will be of me. But Francis' hands hold mine and he keeps them and he kisses them and I know he is honest.

"I realized that day, when you tried to... - his voice drops - … what, what would have been of me without you? - his eyes runs away from me, he looks stubbornly at my hands – I love you, but I know you don't, and I don't know why I said yes to being friends with benefits, I felt like I was exploiting you but at the same time I... I just wanted crumbs of your love. - he speaks so quickly I can barely react and I can't interrupt him, because emotional waterfalls once they start can't be suppressed – I tried to forget you, I tried, I really did. I did, I swear. But it was so..."

"... me too."

He shuts up.

His eyes climb my arm and find my face.

I suck my lips, embarrassed, and my stomach is completely burning but I don't care.

"I hate you so much... - I murmur – You... you can't avoid saying something like this for so much."

Francis chuckles, but it seems more he is waiting for the dream to stop, the bubble to burst, and to wake up alone in the bed. And I know, because I had those dreams to.

From the sad veil in his crayon blue eyes I understand he had them so many times he wouldn't be surprised this not to be true.

"I suppose we are both two cowards then..."

I kiss his lips. Sweetly. No tongue, no passion. Like children.

Like I wanted to do since always.

Because my first kiss wasn't for him and I feel like I should fix it.

"I am not the one who goes around speaking about true love and romanticism. - I smile and sniff – You are an asshole."

His arms surround me and he replies to my kiss with a little, slow, rain of other little kisses on my lips.

"I always go about things the wrong way..."

I raise my eyebrows, whispering, "If it leads you to the right place, it can't be so wrong."

the end


End file.
